‘Loaded’ waffle fries

We have talked before, on Facebook, about how my friends (well, my mum’s friends, as I don’t have any irl ones of my own over here yet 😥) don’t understand what it’s like to live with a chronic condition.

Except for the one who has a chronic condition, and had a stroke last year too, and is still busy devising new projects to occupy her until she can go back to her career as a vicar, and her second career as a semi-professional photographer; her third career / hobby, as a published poet, is still ongoing.

I admire her greatly, while also freely admitting that she scares me more than a little.

Anyway: to everyone else, it’s difficult to understand why I should be so exhausted from just leaving the house for a couple of hours two days in a row. One day of rest didn’t come close to restocking my drawer of spoons, and then today I had to wake up early to get mum on her way to church.

At first mum said she was in too much pain to go, so I got her some painkillers and advised her to wait for 20 minutes to see if they helped before telling her friend she wasn’t going. 30 seconds later, mum said she was in too much pain to go to church, and I told her to wait for 20 minutes, and 30 seconds after that…

You know how this goes as well as I do, and will also correctly have guessed that after 20 minutes she felt much better and decided to go to church after all. I had plenty of things I could have done while mum was out – work on the cookbook or my novel, do some of my long-neglected historical research volunteering, watch a YouTube channel or a tv programme mum wouldn’t be interested in, read my book – but mostly what I did was watch the rain falling and enjoy the silence in the house.

Mum came back full of enthusiasm and energy – darn these extroverts, who get energy from being around other people – and bustled around doing housework and generally being busy and lively. Together we got the Christmas tree down, and put the new decoration up in its place, with only one cut and half a dozen muttered swear words on my behalf.

Then mum decided she was hungry, and complained there was nothing to eat. I pointed out the many options, and mum then complained there were too many choices and she couldn’t decide. 🙄

She opted for one of these Cornish cranberry cookies , and enjoyed it so much she had a second. I had one later and have to agree that they’re very nice, and I really should have bought two packs.

Dinner was an oven tray special, as I’m feeling wobbly enough on my weary legs that even mum has noticed and offered to help with dinner. 😯 If you think the headline photo doesn’t look very loaded, you’d be right: mum is feeling so much better this evening that she was unusually hungry and enthusiastically loaded her bowl, leaving not much veg for me. She apologised and offered to put some back, but I’m genuinely just pleased that she’s feeling better enough to take more than her share of the food.

And on that note, I’m off to get myself some Christmas spiced cake (also reduced to clear on the website of The Cornish Company, but sold out now so sorry if you wanted to try some) and ice cream. And then listen to the rain, which is loud enough to be heard over the television. 😯